Page 4 of The Hunted
“Hmm,” Martin started, “I’ve done what you couldn’t or wouldn’t with a legal system bound to protect the corrupt instead of seeking justice for the victims. There’s a wolf amongst you. One of you isn’t who you say you are.”
Fuck.
ChapterTwo
Santino could barely keep his eyes open as he made his way to the nearest café in Nova Springs. He spent most of his night and morning in his office going over his own notes he had on the Poet Killer—a name he really detested—and matching them up with his notes on who he thought was the Reaper. He followed both killers throughout the country. Both were never in the same place twice until now.
There was no real overlap on paper, except maybe for the staging of the bodies, and even then, that didn’t tell him much. He’d been the only one who was convinced the murderers they’d been following had been coming from the same person, but he had no proof. The profiles on both the Reaper and the Poet had been different too. One was more vigilante verses someone who’d been denied power. He couldn’t find the link between the two of them until last night, and he couldn’t share with his coworkers his findings.
Not if I want to play this game and keep my secrets under wraps.
He was still annoyed that someone got to his mark before he could. A missed hit always made him antsy. His skin felt too tight on his body, and his stomach seemed to hollow out no matter what he put in it. He would have to hunt tonight. If he held off any longer, he’d fuck something up in his rush to hear the call of death coming from his victim.
If he fucked up, he’d be sporting a pair of shiny cuffs and an orange jumpsuit.
And after years of doing what he did—going from the Hitchhiker, to the Beach Killer, to the Preacher and finally the Midnight Strangler, he had perfected his craft well enough to know how to stay under the radar.
Most serial killers never moved beyond their rituals. It gave them order in their chaos, and eventually it caught up with them. They couldn’t evolve like he had, and when they didn’t, someone always picked up their patterns. It was usually him and his team, and it disappointed him every time when he watched them hang their heads and recount their stories. They were then reduced to the consequences of their upbringing. Some tragic past that could have been avoided if someone was paying attention.
As if some monsters aren’t born.
Santino’s compulsion to kill had been there as far back as he could remember. The woman who had taken him in as a preteen had given him an outlet and shown him a way to channel what he was feeling inside of his tiny body. She gave him focus, purpose, and molded him to be able to do this until old age caught up with him like it did her.
“I always like going after men who remind me of the preacher I had as a little girl. I was never able to catch him—disease riddled his body.” She chuckled. “I guess having your body die on you slowly is worse than anything I could have come up with.” Her gloved hand gripped the steering wheel, and he knew—even in his young age—that no matter how much she said she was over not killing him, it still bothered her.
“But as I’ve grown, I’ve learned to let go of exactly what attributes remind me of my preacher and find little things to connect them all. You will do the same. If you don’t listen to anything I teach you, listen to that. They’ll figure out your patterns soon enough. You need to be smarter.”
And he had been.
At least until now.
People buzzed around him on their morning commutes, and he had to resist the urge to physically stare at them, wondering if one of them was the Reaper.
Was he being watched, even now?
Was the Reaper looking at him, laughing at what they’d been able to accomplish that no one else could?
Santino massaged the area between his eyebrows. He could feel a headache coming, and he wasn’t sure if it was the lack of caffeine, not getting his kill last night, or the fact that someone out there knew exactly who he was.
He pulled open the café shop door just as someone was coming out, and neither one of them was paying attention. They collided, and cold liquid sloshed down the front of his shirt before the sound of a plastic cup hit the floor. He cursed, wrapping his hands around warm skin to steady the person in front of him, and when he looked down he was momentarily struck immobile and unaware of anything but her.
A wild mass of auburn loose curly hair covered her eyes and part of her face. He could see full lips turned down as she glared at the fallen coffee. The warm skin beneath his hands were a deep olive and smooth to the touch. She was tall—her head just under his chin and he was easily six-five. From what he could see she was fit—sleek muscles bunched under his fingers as if she’d been prepared to strike out, and why did that make his heart speed up?
“Damn it. I didn’t even get to drink that. Fucking hate Wednesdays.” Her voice was all silky and seductive, and there was a slight accent he couldn’t place but was sure he’d figure it out of she kept talking.
“Most people only like Wednesdays because it’s the middle of the week and that much closer to Friday,” he mumbled. He shook his head, trying to clear whatever this pull was she had on him.
“Excuse us.” Someone cleared their throat behind her, and he mentally cursed when the world seemed to come back online for him. He was always aware of his surroundings. It kept him ahead of everyone else and his ability not to get caught. But somehow, in a matter of seconds he zeroed in on the woman in front of him, and he couldn’t understand why.
They moved out of the doorway, their bodies moving in sync. It somehow pushed them closer to one another when they let the other customers pass. Each touch sent a shock through Santino’s body, which only furthered his intrigue of the woman and himself.
He couldn’t remember the last time he had a response to a woman that wasn’t engineered. Sex wasn’t something he enjoyed, but he knew how it looked for a man of his build to not date around. People exhausted him, and anytime he got close to someone it was for their deaths.
“You owe me another coffee.” The woman finally looked up at him, and he was stunned again.
A pair of mismatched eyes stared back at him. The left one a warm honey color with flecks of gold splashed just above the pupil. The right a blue so clear it was like looking into the ocean on a tropical island. But other than the color, there was nothing warm about the way she glared at him.
She crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her foot as if she was expecting something from him. A response possibly, but all he could do was study her. She was all legs; they never seemed to end. The way she stood, putting all of her weight on her right side, suggested she was right-handed.
